Anthropologists talk about the paleo diet "craze" : Paleolithic & Neanderthin Forum : Active Low-Carber Forums

#1 ^

Thu, Mar-24-11, 08:03

Nancy LC

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Anthropologists talk about the paleo diet "craze"

Good excerpted quotes here...

Quote:

There have been many articles written about the paleo diet. Almost all of them have been idiotic. GOOD Magazine just did one that is not idiotic. It actually involves talking to actual experts in the field instead of hot physical trainers. This article is an interview with four well-respected physical anthropologists and evolutionary biologists. We have Peter Ungar, author of the excellent Evolution of the Human Diet: The Known, The Unknown, and The Unknowable (a perfect title to describe the field). Also Katherine Milton, who has written some rebuttals to Cordain's papers. Amanda Henry is one of the authors of the infamous paleo "flour" paper I wrote about. I don't know much about Bill Leonard, but his latest papers sound interesting.

Overall, I found Ungar and Leonard's answers the most reasonable. Milton seems to be overreaching both in terms of making inferences based on limited evidence and in terms of her own nutritional expertise. Henry seems fixated on her own paper...

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#2 ^

Thu, Mar-24-11, 19:57

Thomas1492 Thomas1492 is offline

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From Looking at the quotes of Milton that Melissa posted, it seems to me IMHO, that Milton has an agenda to push...

#3 ^

Thu, Mar-24-11, 21:06

kwikdriver kwikdriver is offline

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Quote:

Milton: While I don’t know what the paleo diet is, what I do know is that if you’re talking about trying to eat unprocessed foods, a high percentage of fruits and vegetables, and only as much animal source as you need to meet protein and essentially amino acid requirements, then that’s a good diet....

Imagine you're an active man, about 5' 9" tall, a muscular 170 - 180 pounds or so, needing maybe 3000 calories a day to live. Then, imagine getting "a high percentage" of those calories from fruits and vegetables. This, at a time when there weren't banana groves and apple orchards. We may not know exactly what the paleo diet was, but we sure as hell know what it wasn't.